Writer of ‘The Whale’ on the Oscars and his play at Seattle’s ACT

Samuel D. Hunter seems to have a fascination with exploring faith, as a concept: faith in God, sure, but also faith in people, faith in systems, faith that things will all work out. In conversation, the personable, Obie Award-winning playwright suffers from perhaps an excess of perspective, often qualifying opinions to allow space for considerations he might not yet know about. Perhaps that’s why he’s able to write very specific circumstances that somehow leave vast spaces in which viewers can see themselves. 

Hunter, who was born in Pullman and grew up in Moscow, Idaho, has rooted much of his playwriting oeuvre in our neighboring state, from his 2010 play “A Bright New Boise” to “A Great Wilderness,” which premiered at Seattle Rep in 2014, to “A Case for the Existence of God,” which was named best play of the 2021-22 season by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. 

Hunter’s play “The Whale” won 2013 Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel awards; a decade later, he adapted it into a screenplay for director Darren Aronofsky, a project that took Hunter all the way to the 2023 Oscars. Hunter chatted with The Seattle Times about his Oscars experience, the problem with thesis statements in theater, and the Seattle premiere of “A Case for the Existence of God,” which runs at ACT Theatre from Feb. 2-18, directed by John Langs and starring Conner Neddersen and Nathaniel Tenenbaum as two dads struggling to build a life for themselves and their young daughters. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

You’ve said in interviews that everything you write begins with a question, something you’re asking yourself. What was that question for “A Case for the Existence of God”? 

On the surface they were very uninteresting things: My husband and I bought an apartment and adopted a kid. Having property and becoming a parent are very normal, middle-class goals, but they were by far the two hardest things we’ve ever done in our entire lives, and it just gave me this sense of like, my god, why is it this hard to live a middle-class American life right now? And that’s not a new question, that’s something everybody has been talking about for a long time. 

In the deeper layers of why I wanted to write it, I’m so often disappointed with the way that male love is depicted in our media. After one of the very first readings of this play, a friend of mine, a playwright, said, “I kept waiting for them to either punch each other or kiss each other, and neither came.” And she meant it as a compliment. It’s such a terrible disservice to the culture at large that this is the only vocabulary that men have to relate to one another. So I think the play became an investigation of the complexities of modern American male friendship, and deliberately choosing these two guys who share some common things — they live in the same place, are the same age and they both have young daughters — but that’s the only place in the Venn diagram where they meet. 

As you’re digging into these questions, are answers the point?

No. It’s funny, I think that got me into trouble with “A Great Wilderness” a decade ago: I’m not interested in a thesis statement. I always feel deflated when I’m watching a play, and it’s very complex and there’s a lot going on, but then it leads to the big “this is what I’m saying about this” moment. I just don’t think drama is good at that. There’s no thesis statement in “King Lear,” you know what I mean? Drama is good at presenting this constellation of different perspectives, and recognizing that in real life two seemingly contradictory things can both be true at the same time. Which is something that, culturally, I think we’re getting increasingly bad at recognizing. 

Have you felt that diminishing cultural appetite for complexity in your audiences or the theaters you work with? 

One thing about “A Case for the Existence of God” that was controversial in an interesting way was the title. People got really angry about the title, like it was expressing some conservative idea of Christianity or religion or whatever. If you read The New York Times review, the comments are wild. 

With “A Great Wilderness” [at Seattle Rep], I remember doing talkbacks and people were so suspicious of me because there’s no anthemic speech in that play in which the gay conversion therapy is decried. I think the play is very clearly a tragedy, and hopefully illustrates the tragedy of this man’s life trying to, quote unquote, “cure gay teens.” But because there wasn’t that singular thesis statement, it really set people off. 

People don’t read Arthur Miller and try to suss out “wait a minute, what is Arthur Miller saying about this salesman guy?” People are willing to meet those plays on their own terms. But when something says “world premiere” or “living playwright,” there’s this immediate investigation of: “What are the values of this particular play? Do they line up with my values?” And if they don’t seem to clearly line up, then something’s wrong. It’s a troubling way to encounter art.

Have you seen that attitude increase over the course of your career? 

I wrote a play called “The Harvest” that was about a group of Christian evangelicals, and that was in production during the 2016 election. It was set in a church basement about this group of young, evangelical Christians who were preparing for a mission. And after the election we had a different play on our hands, because the audience all of a sudden was, like, “Oh, those people,” and pulling back. So I don’t know if it’s increasing, but we’re all getting pretty suspicious of each other, and I think that suspicion is growing, and that suspicion bleeds over into the way people watch plays.

What was your Hollywood experience like with “The Whale?” 

Before it all started, I remember thinking that there’s a chance that the volume, the sheer craziness of it, was gonna be an 8 or 9. And then when I did it, it was, like, “This is a 15.” 

I never thought, maybe someday one of my plays will be made into a movie and we’ll go to the Oscars. Even when [film director] Darren [Aronofsky] approached me over 10 years ago, it was like, maybe we’ll make this movie but probably not, probably it’s another one of these projects that starts and dies. 

Before Darren had the idea to cast Brendan [Fraser] I was, like, “This is never happening.” Darren would option [the script] every couple of years, and when he called me to option it for the fourth or fifth time, I almost said, “Come on, it’s been seven years” or however long, but instead I was, like, “Why not, let’s see what happens.” So it was crazy, but A24 was a great company, they really took me under their wing. They bought me a suit and a tux! Not a lot of production companies would do that. And Brendan is the nicest guy you could ever want to work with, so working with him and then traveling the world with him was a real joy. It was great. It was a lot, but it was great.